


Bleeding Stars

by LydiaLannister



Series: A Soldier's Girl [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, F/F, F/M, Romance, Steve/Original Female Character is endgame, action scenes are not my forte
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:14:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23324557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LydiaLannister/pseuds/LydiaLannister
Summary: Cassidy Barnes always wanted to be like her big brother and now she might finally get the chance. Oh and she's in love with her brother's best friend. Throw in some Super Soldier Serum and the drop-dead gorgeous British officer and Cassidy doesn't know what to do with herself. Follows roughly the timeline for Captain America: The First Avenger.
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Original Female Character(s), Steve Rogers/Original Female Character(s)
Series: A Soldier's Girl [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1677406
Kudos: 4





	1. Steve Gets his Ass Handed to Him

“To my darling boy,

You are going to be three years old in just a few days and you’ve already grown so big I’m worried that I’ll blink, and you’ll be a man already. So, here I am. Sitting inside on such a lovely sunny day instead of at the funeral, writing this letter so that when the kids on the playground or the teachers at school or the people on the streets ask who you are, you’ll be able to tell them. Because this is your story and it starts with a skinny 90 pound asthmatic and his best friend. And me, his best friend’s baby sister. Your father and uncle and I decided to go dancing, well, before that your father got the crap beaten out of him…”

June 14th, 1943

“Steven, are you sure we haven’t tried this one before? The barber shop on the corner looks familiar…” Cassidy said, turning her head away from the looming poster of Uncle Sam and his pointing finger and instead towards a man who looked rather much like he would simply be blown away if the wind came on to strong.

“Yeah, I’m sure. And the reason that barber is familiar is because I got beat up in the alley behind it last month.” Steven gave Cassidy a quick nod of the head accompanied by a smile that was meant to be reassuring but only reminded her of how hopeless this attempt was. Why would this enlistment office be any different from the previous four? Girls weren’t allowed and they would take girls before they took Steve. They were a lost cause. And yet, here she was, about to step into the fifth, because there was no way in hell that her brother was going to Europe without her.

“Okay, let’s do this. Again.” She returned Steve’s smile and pulled the door open, steeling herself for the inevitable stares, both unfriendly and a little too friendly, that came with walking into an office full of half-naked men anxious to get a gun in their hands. And for the failure. The dark 4F stamp that was going to inevitably bleed through the flimsy piece of paper that she and Steve had filled out just an hour before, marking her unfit for military service. Steve’s grip on her hand tightened as they made their way to the only two seats left in the crowded room. She couldn’t remember when he had taken her hand but was grateful for it as a man across from her whistled and drawled “hey gorgeous” in a way that made her want to punch him and vomit simultaneously.

“Ignore them, Cassidy. They don’t matter,” Steve hissed into her ear. “And maybe stop trying to murder my hand.”

Relaxing her vice-like grip on his fingers, Cassidy eased back into her seat, letting the cool metal of the folding chair ground her. The man, however, was not finished making crude advances on her, spreading his legs wide so he could prop his elbows on them and say, “Wouldn’t you rather have some meat on your man? Someone who could actually handle all that, who could really give it to you.” He gestured to her breasts, hidden beneath one of Steve’s soft cotton shirts. Before she could retort with a comment on how he shouldn’t spread his legs so wide or else people would see that there was nothing between them, Steve stood up.

His fists tightened and she noticed the way he puffed his chest out in an attempt to make it seem like there was something there other than skin and bones. Clenching his jaw and taking a bold step forward he replied far too calmly.

“Apologize to the lady.”

The man laughed and stood as well. Steve gulped and Cassidy began to wish that she had asked her brother to come along. Towering over Steve, he crossed his arms.

“Apologize for what, boy?”

Cassidy tugged on Steve’s arm, trying to pull him back into his seat while looking for anyone who might help them. This was neither the place nor the time to pick a fight he clearly couldn’t win. But the other men just looked on with amusement and the nurses ignored the whole scene entirely. Steve was going to get his ass beat.

“For treating her like a piece of meat. She’s a person with her own thoughts and feelings. So, tell her you’re sorry.” Cassidy groaned. Why couldn’t Steve learn to pick his battles better? But that was just it, Steve didn’t pick battles. He steamrolled his way into any and every situation that he thought was wrong, even though he, more often than not, had little power to right it. And this was a situation that Cassidy was sure would be a painful one to get them out of.

“Rogers, Steven.” The bored voice of the doctor cut through the tension between the men not a second too soon and Steve looked back at Cassidy for just a moment before winding his way between the rows of chairs and to the desk. He argued back and forth for a few minutes, but the thump of what could only be a 4F stamp ended whatever plead he was making. That probably meant her try was useless too. None the less, when the drone called out her name she got up and walked past Steve, who gave her a supportive thumbs up while crumpling his ink smudged sheet in the other hand.

“Good luck. I’ll wait outside,” Steve said, the smile he flashed her not quite meeting his blue-green eyes. She nodded and sighed, readying herself for what was likely to be another rejection.

“You seem to be in good physical standing, however, the same cannot be said for your mental state. I think you meant to go to the nurse’s station, darling. You know, for the girls,” the doctor said, looking over his crooked nose. The once over he gave her was not unlike that of the man Steve had nearly punched just minutes ago, which reminded her that the other shoe had yet to drop in regards to that conflict.

“Right, of course, silly me.” Cassidy’s reply was curt as she took her own sheet of failure unstamped from the desk and turned on her heels, strutting with her shoulders high and back straight, trying desperately to keep up the air of confidence that was slowly slipping away into a puddle of frustration. What was wrong with wanting to serve her country? She was no different from her brother. In fact, they had play fought together since before she could remember, and she had always been able to hold her own. And they both knew who the better shot was. She’d hit that soda bottle from 20 yards easily while he’d struggled with 10, an impressive feat for both of them, aged 13 and 15 respectively, with their father’s old Luger. Steve could attest to it.

Except Steve was nowhere to be found. Waiting outside, her ass. Dropping her form in the nearest bin she rounded the corner and the barber’s neon sign to find Steve acting as a punching bag for the man from earlier. And Steve, like the idiot he was, kept getting up again. Rolling her eyes, she casually stepped between Steve and the next punch, grabbing the man’s wrist with ease and twisting it away. She followed it up with a punch of her own, making sure to keep her thumb on the outside the way her brother had taught her and using the first two knuckles, landing it with a solid thud as it connected with his cheek. The punch would have made her brother proud but did little more than anger the man who shoved Cassidy back, sending her crashing into Steve and the trash cans behind them.

“Shit.” She shut her eyes waiting for the inevitable. But the fist she had been expecting never connected with her face. And instead of the angry face of the man she saw her brother grinning at her, already in uniform. The man was groaning on the ground clutching his nose and in no hurry to get back up again, much to Cassidy’s delight.

“You know, Steve, sometimes I think you like getting punched just so Cass and I can save your sorry ass,” her brother laughed. Steve looked sheepish as he ducked out from behind Cassidy.

“Yeah, well, I couldn’t help myself. I mean, the guy was looking at your sister like she was a cow in the slaughterhouse.” Her brother gave the man another sharp kick as the three of them made their way to the mouth of the alley, Steve slightly doubled over and Cassidy attempting to copy her brother’s easy swagger. Her brother slung an arm around the both of them as they turned back onto the main road and gave them both a half-dimpled grin.

“So, what do you say to a night of dancing with Sergeant Bucky Barnes of the 107th shipping out for England in the morning?” 


	2. The World of Tomorrow…or Howard Stark is a Narcissist

Dancing, he had said they were going dancing. And while Cassidy wasn’t particularly sure what half of the displays she was being bombarded with contained, she was absolutely certain that this wasn’t dancing.

The three of them were making their way through the broad paved pathways and bright shining lights of the Stark Expo. Ducking around people gawking in awe at self-automated coffee presses and what looked like a hair dryer that cut and styled as well, Cassidy nearly slammed into her brother’s backside as he stopped abruptly. Steve, however, took a second longer to register that they had both stopped and careened into her, sending the three of them toppling.

“Oi, Buck, you wanna give a girl a warning when you’re about to just stop in front of her feet like that?” Cassidy gave her brother a shove as she pulled herself up, dusting the skirt of her sea-green dress off and offering Steve a hand as he tried to entangle himself from Bucky.

“Sorry, Cass, but if you hadn’t noticed there were people in the way. Unless you wanted me to just plow through them?” Bucky stood and returned the shove, mussing up her curls with a playful pat too. Steve shushed them both and nudged them towards the enormous stage that the crowd was gathered in front of.

“You two want to stop bickering? It’s starting,” he said, waving his hand at the lights that were dimming all over the pavilion.

Cassidy gave her brother one more shove for good measure and turned her attention towards the stage, which was now brightly lit and covered in scantily clad women and…a car? She scoffed under her breath. What had she expected from Howard Stark, the man who had it all, something sensible? And Bucky, he was practically drooling over the girls who were kicking their legs so high Cassidy thought they would injure themselves. Cassidy looked over at Steve, expecting him to be staring glassy-eyed at the show too, but instead found him gazing at her. As soon as their eyes met though, he blushed and turned his head away, focusing far to intensely on the left corner of the stage. Cassidy felt a small smile spread across her face and slide her hand cautiously into his, delighting when he didn’t pull away.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the one, the only, Stark Expo! Where I, Howard Stark, get to share some of my magic with all of you. Tonight, I present to you the transportation of the future!” The man who had sauntered on stage at some point, Cassidy hadn’t really been paying much attention to the show, flashed a bright grin at the audience. Somewhere in the crowd a woman swooned, at least that’s what Cassidy imagined. She, on the other hand, was perfectly content with holding Steve’s hand. Howard Stark and his lines of ladies could suck it.

“In just a few years you’ll be able to not only drive this sweet, sweet ride behind me, but also cruise through the skies!” Cassidy yawned. Did Howard Stark really expect her to believe that a pile of scrap metal in a flashy coat of red paint would be able to fly? He was a genius, sure, but flying cars seemed a little much, even for him.

The flashy car in question roared to life, its wheels giving way to metal cylinders and the ladies scrambling out of the way. Then Howard pushed a button and the stage started to shake. Slowly, so slowly that for a moment Cassidy doubted what she was seeing, the car began to rise. She heard Steve gasp a little to her left and a soft “damn, he really did it” from her brother in front of her, her own mouth had fallen open in an ‘o’ and she quickly snapped it back shut before anyone could see. It couldn’t really be flying and yet, it was. Hovering a foot off the ground, the car seemed to be holding stable. Howard smirked.

And then the car gave a groan and the motor stuttered. The girls took another step back. Howard look back just in time to hear the crunch of metal against metal and the scraping of the frame against the stage. He quickly recovered though and turned back to the audience, microphone in hand.

“I did say a few years.” The ladies behind him laughed and started up their routine again, kicking their legs even higher than before, if that was even possible. Stark bowed himself off the stage to the roaring applause of the crowd and Cassidy turned to her brother.

“Can you take us dancing now?” Her hand was still in Steve’s.

“Sure thing, sis,” Bucky drawled, spinning around on his heels with a casual grace that made Cassidy roll her eyes for what seemed like the thousandth time that day. Show off, even when there were no ladies watching. He cut a path through the dispersing throng towards the nearest map, where he proceeded to stand for a solid two minutes before turning to Cassidy and asking her where they were supposed to be. Honestly, how did the boy expect to survive England without her. She had to find a way to join him, one that would guarantee her a place by his side. She had to get into the 107th.

While Bucky continued to consult and thoroughly insult the map, Steve turned his attention elsewhere. A sign, one of the only ones in the enormous park, advertised an enlistment office.

“What do you say we try again?” Steve said as he pulled them away from Bucky.

“As what? Steve from New Mexico? I think I might have already used that one, not that it matters. They don’t even bother looking past my name,” Cassidy grumbled as they stepped into the poorly lit building. Bucky still hadn’t caught on that they were no longer standing behind him and was seemingly trying to charm the map into telling him where the nearest dance hall was, Cassidy wouldn’t have been all too surprised if it had worked, given that this was Stark’s park.

“We can’t give up Cassidy, eventually they’ll have to let us in,” Steve said, starting to pull them down the hallway.

“Hey Steve, Cassidy! I found it. Where are you guys? This again, really. Aren’t you getting a little tired of getting rejected?” Bucky had finally turned away from the map and was now striding towards them, his tight-lipped smile stern.

“We’ll try until they come to their senses and let us in,” Cassidy said. Steve squeezed her hand while Bucky just shook his head.

“C’mon Cass, this is madness. And you too Steve, stop encouraging her. Look, they’ll catch you! Or worse, they’ll actually take the two of you!” Bucky’s voice rose and, in that moment, he seemed to tower over her, ever the big brother. But next to her, Steve, who was a good couple inches shorter than her, stayed tall. She felt ridiculous standing there in her green dancing dress and done-up hair, and then she squared her jaw and widened her stance.

“Bucky, there’s a war going on overseas. That’s madness. And there are _men_ laying down their lives. So why can’t I?” Her voice rose to match his. He may have been her big brother, but that didn’t give him the right to tell her what she could and couldn’t do. She was going to go to Europe.

“Are you serious, Cassidy?! Do you really think the army is going to take an asthmatic and a little girl? Look at yourselves, this is insane. You can’t possibly know what you’re trying to get yourselves into, I mean-” Cassidy broke him off with a slap across his cheek.

“Little girl?! Little girl. You know what’s insane, that my big brother is suddenly just like all the other pigheaded idiot men out there! You know damn well that I know what I’m getting myself into. And that I can fight, and shoot, and die just as well as any man, if not better!”

Steve had let go of her hand and the breeze running across her palm was terribly cool. The handful of people in the hallway had made themselves scarce except for an older man in the corner, not that it mattered to Cassidy if she had an audience. Today was the day she was going to finally murder Bucky Barnes, dumbass brother extraordinaire. And he should have seen it coming, with utter bullshit he had just spewed out of his mouth like all the other boys playing at soldier.

Steve tentatively opened his mouth to speak in the silence that her shouting had left.

“I have to agree with your sister, Buck. We know better than anyone what it is to fight. And besides, she definitely hit that soda bottle fair and square.”

There was a split second of silence and then Bucky chuckled, his dimple shining as he smiled and slapped a hand on either of their shoulders.

“Well, I’ll wait for you in London as long as I can. And I’m pretty sure the wind knocked it over, but I guess you’ll just have to show me again if you’re so sure you hit it,” he grinned at them, and Cassidy felt the her shoulders ease back down, unclenching her fist and letting out the breath she had been holding. Her brother wasn’t an idiot after all. Just concerned, the way she was.

He waved them both off and strolled down the hall and back out into the dazzling sights of the World of Tomorrow.

“Ready for try number six, Cassidy from Nevada?” Steve offered his hand and the warmth from before returned.

“Nevada, haven’t done that one before,” she laughed as they strode down the hallway with more decisive steps, their shoulders high and fingers interlocked. This time, they wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Or maybe they would. The man at the recruitment desk didn’t even bother looking at her form and instead pointed her towards a smaller desk, with a sign NURSES NEEDED. Cassidy clenched her fist and took a deep breath before placing the her filled out form in front of him.

“I’m in the right place.” Her voice shook just the slightest, and Steve’s hand gave a gentle squeeze. The man looked up, his eyes giving her a bored once over and then back down at the form.

“We don’t take ladies. Now if you’ll please step aside, I’ve got work to do,” he said, handing her the piece of paper back and motioning for Steve to step forward. Cassidy’s feet felt like lead, her shoulders drooped the slightest and she felt red hot tears forming in her eyes. She tucked a loose curl behind her ear and nodded curtly, stepping aside so that Steve could hand over his form.

“Good luck, Steven,” she said softly and turned on her heels, heading for the door and her brother and hopefully a night of rowdy dancing. Steve watched her drag her feet on the carpet for a few steps and then round the corner before giving the man at the desk his attention. He’d try and then he’d go after her and make her forget how unfair it all was with a few fast songs at the dance hall.

“Why did you do that?”

Cassidy gasped, whirling on feet that were now light and quick as a rabbit, ready to dash away from…the old man from the hallway. Not someone she needed to run from or punch as far as she could tell. Shoving her pounding heart aside and releasing the fists that had tightened at her sides, she focused on the man.

“Why did I do what?” she asked, brushing her skirt back into place. The man smiled at her and clarified.

“Why did you wish him good luck? Do you want him to die overseas?” Cassidy laughed, but the man kept his eyes on her, awaiting the answer to his questions.

“No, I don’t want him to die overseas. I want him to…to fulfill his dream.” The former was absolutely true, the latter felt like something she had seen on a postcard or heard in one of the recruitment clips they played before the picture. The man raised an eyebrow.

“Fulfill his dream. And what is that dream? To kill some Nazis?” Cassidy laughed again. The idea of Steve wanting to kill someone was absurd, and yet here she was being asked whether Steve wanted to go blow the brains out of Hitler.

“No, sir. It’s the same as mine. To serve my country, protect the innocent, and make sure my idiot brother doesn’t get himself killed,” Cassidy said. The man nodded, and for a moment his eyes seemed distant. Then he clapped his hands together and began to walk back to the recruitment desk. Cassidy stood in the hall, unsure of what to do.

“Well, don’t just stand there. Your brother ships out in the morning and you haven’t got the time to waste in this hallway!” The man beckoned to her and led her straight past the man who had refused her entry before, who did not even so much as glance up from the newspaper in front of him.

As the two of them wove their way through the various weighing and measuring stations, Cassidy noted that she hadn’t seen Steve walking back towards them. He must have finally gotten past the front desk and Cassidy hoped that in one of the curtained off rooms he was getting his A1 stamp.

“So, this Steven you were with, he wants to go with you, yes?” The man breezed past the other doctors and nurses and even the security detail that was posted on either side of the door, finally stopping them in front of a curtained off section near the back of the room.

“Yes. More than anything. His father served in the 107th with mine,” Cassidy said, waiting for the man to explain what exactly was going on. After all, they didn’t just let women into the army because they had dreams, right?

Giving her another smile, the man pulled the curtain back just enough so that they could enter. The cot inside was taken by a shirtless, shivering Steve, for whom the eggshell colored walls were doing nothing for his pale complexion. He glanced up, eyes widening when he saw Cassidy. Then his eyes fell on the man beside her and his gaze became worried.

“We’re not in trouble, are we? I mean, we haven’t done anything wrong.” He glanced at the sign that adorned the otherwise bare wall: It is illegal to falsify your enlistment form. “Right?”

“As far as I am concerned, no one outside the three of us and Sergeant Barnes need to know about your questionable forms, Steve from New Mexico. I am Dr. Abraham Erskine with the Strategic Scientific Reserve and I would like to offer you both a chance, but first, why the five tries Steven?” Erskine asked, taking a piece of paper out of the briefcase that had been sitting at Steve’s feet.

Steve caught Cassidy’s eyes and she offered him a smile, still trying to decipher what exactly Dr. Erskine was telling them. He swallowed and clasped his hands together in front of them in attempts to hide their slight tremble.

“I…I don’t like bullies. And the way I see it, there’s a lot of big guys overseas. Bullies on both sides of the line. I just want to do my part, sir. Do the right thing, and I can’t do that if I’m not over there,” Steve said, wringing his hands together as Erskine contemplated him for a moment. Bucky wasn’t her only reason for needing to go overseas. Cassidy was doing this to prove herself to Steve too, to show him that she cared about doing the right thing, cared about him.

Erskine looked over the paper in his hand and nodded, then back up at Steve and Cassidy. These were the ones; he was sure of it. They had heart and even though Colonel Phillips wasn’t going to like it, Erskine knew that he wouldn’t take anyone else.

Returning the paper to his briefcase, Dr. Erskine waved his hand at Steve’s bare chest.

“What are you waiting for? Put your shirt back on before you catch a cold. I wouldn’t want to be sick for my first day of training.”

Cassidy grinned as Erskine placed two inky A1’s on their forms; they had finally made it, even if this Erskine was a little odd. Steve was smiling too as he buttoned up his shirt and readjusted his tie. This was certainly better than dancing.

Bucky stood waiting outside, wondering what was taking them so long. He started to worry that someone had noticed, that Steve and Cassidy were going to spend the night in a jail for lying on their forms. Surely, they should’ve been back if all they’d done was get rejected at the door and walk back down the hallway? Just as he was about to stride back up the stairs to check on them, they came out of the building, talking in hushed tones which Bucky was too far away to properly hear.

“You ready to go dancing?” he called to them as he waited for them to make their way down the steps. Cassidy grinned and shouted back.

“Are you sure you know where to go?” Steve chuckled beside her and Bucky rolled his eyes, ruffling Steve’s dirty blond hair and looping his arm through Cassidy’s.

“Ha ha, very funny. Now c’mon, you guys took ages in there and at the pace you’re going they’ll have played all the good songs by the time we get there,” Bucky said, guiding them off a path to the left of the enlistment office and towards a pavilion surrounded by fairy lights and filled with a rowdy crowd of people swirling around to the sultry croons of a woman accompanied by a wild piano and a saxophone.

It would kill Cassidy to say goodbye to her brother in the morning, but as she let Steve and Bucky spin her around, she was satisfied knowing that she wouldn’t be far behind him.

While the other women sobbed or furiously waved and blew kisses at their men, uniformed and climbing the gangplank onto the already packed ship, Cassidy was shoving her brother through the crowd.

“I can’t believe you actually overslept! If you can’t even make it to the boat in time, how are you going to fight Nazis? Now get your ass on that ship, brother mine, before I change my mind about letting you go,” Cassidy said, pushing past a woman tearfully clutching a handkerchief and another shushing a crying baby. The ship’s whistle blew; that was their two minute warning.

“Shit, shit, shit. I wanted more time to do this, but you just couldn’t be bothered to set your alarm clock…so here. Mom’s necklace. I’d say something sweet and touching and send you up on that boat with tears in your eyes, but we are running out of time. Don’t get your sorry ass shot before Steve and I get there, alright?” Cassidy pressed a simple silver locket into Bucky’s hand and hugged him tight. Steve, who had been desperately trying to keep up with them, threw his arms around Bucky as well and then Cassidy shoved her brother towards the wooden plank that would lead him up to the main deck. He reached the top and the sailors pulled it up behind him, the whistle blowing one last time before the ship started to make its way out of the bustling port. Bucky stood on the deck, waving long after they had crossed the horizon, clutching the locket fiercely to his heart and tears in his eyes.


End file.
